Information comes at us faster than any other working generation. In the 80s, the memo would have to be walked to your desk. A question required waiting in line, no one had unlimited access to you in seconds. 

How to manage all the chaos? If the grass in the yard is too long, to me, that's a hint that I'm losing control and things are getting outta hand. Hiring someone to mow isn't the right answer, its a bandaid on a persistent symptom.

One of my biggest joys is to design systems that work really well. Contrary to the biases of being an engineer, designing systems that work really well require exactly zero lines of code.

I've made the design of complex systems simple, many times: like the design of software systems, or systems that continuously open up and highlight the critical path to success of engineering teams, allowing them to become high performance teams, and sustaining that to deliver results, not excuses.

But also, simpler systems, like:

📓 A system to study, or mow, in spite of a very busy life.

🏋️ A system to stay fit. I admit, I lost sight of this after 2020, but 25 pull-ups are a breeze again.

🎞️ How I manage thousands of photos for my family, both physical and digital without giving away my data to the enterprise.

🔨 How I store and find things at home.

💾 How I've managed my digital life, and prevented data loss, and prevented the data from getting out of control over the last 30 years.

🥗 A system for an efficient kitchen, allowing to whip out healthy meals in 20 minutes.

🏎️ A system that allows finding anything in my garage, sort of like indexing, but without labels. Everything is where one would expect it to be.

🛢️ A system that allows quick DIY oil changes and routine maintenance work in my car, faster and cheaper than taking it to a shop, and with higher quality work. Example, do mechanic shops even torque bolts to specs?

🗃️Filing systems, how do you find physical files in physical folder, the same applies to digital? our 101 outta high-school jobs right? Through my professional career, I've come to the realization that companies have forgotten the art of "being organized." - files, folders, and document are absolute chaos, but not in my team, nor life. Even in 2023, "search" isn't a replacement for organized files. What happens when you know a document exists, but you don't know its name, contents, or how to search for it? But you know its important, and you know it exists, but you don't know how to find it.

📪 Did you know that you spend an average of 63 days in a life time, or 21 hours a year sorting through your physical mail? Assuming life expectancy of 72 years, and that it only takes you 5 mins a day to get it, open it, read it, toss, it, and doesn't even consider the time of addressing an actionable mail item. And it takes much longer than that if your mailbox is not at your door? In 63 days you could've traveled to approximately 9 countries and spent a week in each.

Simple but good and effective and efficient systems can also change the way your organization operates, dramatically, and cut on unnecessary cost just as it can help one's personal life.

What does it take? It requires someone to care.